It's a fundamental truth: fame, like toilet paper, is fleeting

There are some people, not many, but some, who think I am
famous. The security guard at the local supermarket who always asks
me what it was like to be on Cop Shop is one. He is a very
old security guard. But still he always says hello and points me
out to befuddled people in the supermarket.

Once a man approached me uncertainly after encountering the nice
security guard and muttered in stilted English: "You the man
there say you where is toilet paper? You
please." I nodded and took the man down the aisle to the toilet
paper.

And it's here that the question of fame is interesting. If you
were really famous, would you want people pointing you out in the
supermarket aisles as you debate whether you are going to be
environmentally sound and buy recycled and unbleached toilet paper,
or just let yourself go and indulge in a minor pleasure of
purchasing soft as velvet two-ply white-as-snow toilet tissue?
Hmmmm.

I guess if you are really famous then you get someone else to go
and rage about which toilet paper should be gracing your arse. But
perhaps it's nice to go out shopping and drift through the aisles
looking at stuff, having a chat to people. Perhaps really famous
people wouldn't be able to do that. And if that were the case then
why would you want to be famous? What is it about fame that drives
people to seek it?

I was on a television series once that was basically all about
being famous. Well, not exactly, but that was the end result of
being on it. We all got a buzz out of being recognised in the
street.

The most important day of the week was the rehearsal day. You'd
be given your week's mail, your fan mail. People would sit around
the set and go through this stuff like researchers seeking the
truth in ancient manuscripts.

I hardly used to get any; a couple of loopy people from the back
of beyond would write and invite me to go shooting - but really
that was about it. What I did like to do was to write fan mail to
my co-actors. At first it was a mild joke, but so seriously were
these forms of correspondence taken that they soon became my main
form of entertainment. They became so outrageously fawning and
sycophantic that I was sure my co-workers would twig. Indeed, the
letters all had the same postcode. But no, they would read these
things and believe that some fan had written singing their
praises.

Being famous blinds you. You live in a bubble. It is a part of
the job you have, and so you have to believe it, to a certain
extent. But the fact that otherwise sensible people who happen to
be on the telly believe that small shrines are being built for them
in Longreach, and that people come and pray beside them for
healing, or that sailors in the Royal Australian Navy write your
name on ballistic missiles as a form of love and devotion is
something I think a little sad.

It is also terribly human. So don't feel sorry for the
famous.

All of us live and die. All of us are on this earth for a finite
time. Some try to cheat that mortality by seeking fame. It is
encouraged, for famous people take us outside ourselves. They allow
us to dally in another world. Even talking about the famous passes
the time. What has Nicole had done? What has Russell done now? And
is Hugh really that nice?

Fame is ostensibly an indication of success, of worth and
importance. Even powerful people seem to like being famous. This is
where fame is a bit weird. Because you are famous it doesn't mean
you are worth any more than any other member of society. But just
try to tell that to people on awards nights. You have an award, and
a television camera and a microphone and you will have a truly
accurate example of the pure stupidity and human silliness of being
famous.

People who are about as functional as a two-dollar watch stand
before us and lecture on how what they have done is important and
meaningful, how they thank us for our support. They tell us little
morality stories about who they are and how their success can
inspire us all.

Being famous lets you hide your failures - your broken promises,
your cheapness and inability to cope with life - by glorying in
them and celebrating them in public.

I have worked with some of these types of people. And they are
not bad people. Talented people, far more talented than me. But
still just people - and that's too easy to forget. Fame is
fleeting. It's a fashion and nothing changes quicker than
fashion.

So next time I'm in the local supermarket debating which toilet
paper to buy and the friendly old security guard waves and points
me out to puzzled shoppers who have no idea who I am, I know what
to do. Walk over and say: "It's all right. I'm really not famous,
but what do you want, environmentally safe and unbleached or soft,
thick and white?"